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From
The National Review:
Since the mass shooting in Parkland,
Fla., a considerable amount of energy has understandably been expended
on the matter of which guns should be available to whom and when. But it
is striking that the president’s comments on Thursday about film and
video-game violence have been either derided or glossed over. They are
worth lingering on.
Most of us probably inhabit a kind of bubble when it comes to
violence on screen. We choose to watch the sorts of films we think we’ll
like and, unless we are film critics, get to avoid the sorts of films
we think will bore or repel us. Until we become parents, most of us
probably pay no particular attention to the drip-feed of blood and gore
that now forms the basis of almost all popular entertainment. As it happens, I’ve had to be on a lot of planes recently, and have
used some of the time to watch movies I would never otherwise seek out.
Apart from concluding that the Oscars shouldn’t award anyone for
anything this year (can’t the whole thing just be called off?), I have
mainly been repulsed at the extreme violence (often mixed with the most
crass “sexiness”) that seems now to be the cinematic norm.
I could describe the sheer awfulness of Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde,
a long-legged female spy dispatching her male foes in gruesome fashion
between coolly pouring herself drinks, but I didn’t make it to the end.
Far worse was a film I did slog all the way through, Kingsman 2.
I won’t bother to explain the risible plot, but it is presented as a
sort of cooler, wryer, modern take on James Bond. Certainly all the
advertising for it, the cast, and the buttons it presses make it clear
that it is not aimed at an adult audience. I was surprised at the
opening to see that it had an R rating, not least because I had heard
people (including an air-stewardess) talking about having taken their
children to see it.
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1 comment:
I remember being horrified when a friend of mine took her 4 year old to see "JAWS" which now seems tame compared to current films.
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